Sarthak Sahai
Portfolio · 2026
Initialising scan head
000%
Student Systems Engineering Intern
Canadian Space Agency
B.Eng. Space Engineering, York University · Apr 2027
Open to aerospace roles
Space systems engineer in training. I build the instruments, payloads, software and teams that let us see other worlds clearly, and find the way across them.
Canadian Space Agency · LiDAR
3 cm
smallest obstacle the rover scanner detects
Four pushbroom LiDAR configurations traded for Artemis 4 surface mapping — then built as an interactive scanner you can run.
Run the trade study
NOVA · stratospheric balloon
40 km
flown on the CSA’s RSOnar III balloon
Led a 6-person team to a sub-500 g payload that held 3.7 W peak against a 4 W power budget.
Read the case study
ROUTE-M · Mars orbiter
≤ 1 m
ground resolution across the whole planet
A two-satellite stereo constellation with a 7-year design life, taken through to Critical Design Review.
Read the case study
01About
I design the instruments, systems and teams that let us measure other worlds, from a 40 km balloon to orbit around Mars.
Why spaceA
I chose Space Engineering because I have always been fascinated by the idea that humanity can build machines capable of leaving Earth and exploring the unknown. Spacecraft are one of the hardest engineering problems we have: every gram, watt and line of code matters, and every decision has to be trusted millions of kilometres away.
What I’ve learnedB
York’s program treats a spacecraft as a complete system — orbital mechanics, mission design, payload development and the human decisions behind a successful mission. The most rewarding part has been watching classroom concepts become real engineering problems. At the Canadian Space Agency, requirements, test data and verification decide whether a system works.
Where I’m goingC
I want to become an Assembly, Integration & Test (AIT) engineer: the person who turns ambitious ideas into working missions by connecting science objectives, spacecraft design and operations, while learning from the people and problems that make this field so inspiring.
02Experience
Active·Internship
Student Systems Engineering Intern
May 2026 — Present
01LiDAR surface mapping
Characterising a LiDAR sensor, defining the scan for surface mapping, and building the measurement chain in-house.
ACharacterise the sensor
Processed and analyzed SICK LMS111-10100 LiDAR point clouds in Python, characterizing 1 cm ranging accuracy and a 3 cm minimum detectable obstacle height across a 20 m maximum scan range to support a TRL increase for off-world navigation and landing.
1cm
ranging accuracy
3cm
min. detectable obstacle
20m
max. scan range
Sensor: SICK LMS111-10100 · supports a TRL increase for off-world navigation & landing
BDefine the scan
Defined pushbroom LiDAR surface-mapping configurations for NASA’s Artemis 4 by trading 25 Hz and 50 Hz scan rates against 0.25° and 0.5° angular increments across varied pitch angles and traverse speeds.
27.0k pts/s
4.4 mm spacing at 1 m · 1081 pts/scan
13.5k pts/s
8.7 mm spacing at 1 m · 541 pts/scan
54.0k pts/s
4.4 mm spacing at 1 m · 1081 pts/scan
27.1k pts/s
8.7 mm spacing at 1 m · 541 pts/scan
Four configurations, traded across pitch angles and traverse speeds for NASA’s Artemis 4 surface mapping.
COwn the chain
Ability to replace a contracted third-party scanning service by building the in-house LiDAR measurement chain end to end — scanning module, Python processing pipeline, and point-cloud viewer.
In-house, end to end: from the laser to the screen.
Interactive · first principles
Fire a virtual pushbroom scanner over a patch of ground with three 3 cm rocks. Change the scan rate and angular increment and watch how far across the track the smallest obstacle stays visible.
Pushbroom lab
Initialising
Obstacle checkReturns on target
270° field of view · 20 m range gate · scan plane perpendicular to travel. Spacing along-track = v ÷ f; across-track ≈ H·Δθ ÷ sin β · (1 + (x·sin β ÷ H)²). “Resolved” ≥ 15 returns, “marginal” 6–14 — illustrative thresholds.
02Mission planning
A separate project within the internship: rover mission planning, in a team of three. The others worked on the existing software; I built a new tool alongside it.
ABuild a new tool
Built a new rover mission-planning tool alongside the team’s legacy software, designed to run on any laptop, low-spec ones included.
BOwn the front end
Designed and built the interface of the new tool: what a planner sees and touches when setting up a plan and checking it.
What a planner sees and touches.
CLook beyond the usual
Explored unconventional ways of implementing path planning, rather than only the conventional ones.
Beyond the usual approaches.
Interactive · illustrative
Drag A and B, switch between Fastest and Safest, or close ground off with a keep-out zone. It is an original demo on made-up terrain, not CSA software or data.
Illustrative demo · MPT
Loading instrument…
Completed·Internship
Rides Mechanical Intern
Apr 2023 — Jan 2024
Keep it runningA
Kept two roller coasters, Dragon Fyre and Leviathan, in safe continuous operation across 8 months through structural integrity assessments, root-cause failure analysis, and preventive mechanical work.
Find the failureB
Diagnosed failures across four restraint and drive subsystems, including lap bars, shoulder restraints, lift chain, and hydraulics, using tolerance analysis, schematics, and manufacturer specifications.
Fig. — Structural & mechanical diagnosticsSchematic
03Projects
01Stratospheric balloon payloadCompleted
Night-Optical and Visibility Assessment
A secondary payload built to a sub-500 g mass allocation and flown on the Canadian Space Agency’s RSOnar III stratospheric balloon to measure night-sky brightness and support resident-space-object detection at 40 km altitude.
Fig. 01 — Ascent profile & qualification
Loading instrument…
02Mars orbital imaging missionCompleted
Reconnaissance Orbital Utility for Terrain Exploration
A Mars-orbiting high-definition imaging mission, taken through the NASA project lifecycle to Critical Design Review: a two-satellite stereo constellation mapping the full Martian surface at 1 m or better.
Fig. 02 — Mars orbit & coverage (illustrative)
Loading instrument…
03Ocean-colour spectroscopy missionCompleted
Ocean Spectroscopy for Carbon and Algal Risk
A space-based ocean spectroscopy mission that quantifies algal biomass from orbit to support ocean-health and global-temperature monitoring, taken through the NASA project lifecycle to Critical Design Review.
Summary only — no separate case study yet.
Fig. 03 — Ocean-colour spectral response (illustrative)
Loading instrument…
04Reconfigurable 1:10-scale rover test platformActive
Sparrow — Autonomous Rover Research Platform
A reconfigurable 1:10-scale wheeled rover test platform for the Canadian Space Agency, aiming at a fraction of what commercial platforms cost, with a single interface that accepts LiDAR, stereo or monocular cameras.
Summary only — no separate case study yet.
Fig. 04 — Sensor-agnostic mast interface
Loading instrument…
05Rover mission-planning softwareActive
Mission Planning Tool
Part of my CSA internship: while the rest of the team worked on the legacy software, I built a new rover mission-planning tool that runs on any laptop, low-spec included, and explored unconventional ways to implement path planning.
Fig. 05 — Live route planner (illustrative)
Loading instrument…
06Autonomous medication-delivery robotCompleted
Hospital Medicinal Dispensing Robot
An autonomous robot designed to follow hospital corridors and deliver the right pill box to the right room. I led the mechanical design and electro-mechanical integration, all inside a $300 project budget.
Fig. 06 — Prototype & corridor navigation logic
Loading instrument…
04Leadership
President·North York, ON·43.77° N 79.50° W
Sep 2024 — May 2026
Led a 20-member multidisciplinary team through design, fabrication, integration, and testing of a 20 ft competition steel bridge, entered against engineering schools from across Canada at the national competition in Moncton, NB.
Grew the team from 6 to 20 members and shifted funding from member donations to $35,000 in external sponsorships and industry collaborations.
Introduced experimental triangular-truss members in place of the flat members used in traditional builds.
Competition steel bridge · side elevation
Traditional builds use flat members.
Team
6 → 20members
Funding
$35,000
in external sponsorships & industry collaborations, shifted from member donations
Competition
20 ft
steel bridge, entered against engineering schools from across Canada at nationals in Moncton, NB
Steering & Braking Lead·North York, ON
Sep 2024 — Feb 2025
Served as Steering and Braking Lead for GNCTR, designing and integrating the toboggan’s steering and braking systems in SolidWorks under dynamic load conditions.
Design was carried over and reused by the following year’s team; team won Best New Team and Best Ski Design and was featured in a CP24 news segment.
Award
Best New Team
Award
Best Ski Design
Press
Featured in a CP24 news segment
Steering & braking design carried over and reused by the following year’s team
VP Student Life·North York, ON
Sep 2022 — Apr 2024
05Research
Research project · Nov 2024 · York University
Planetary radius
Computed from the light curve69,112 km
Published value69,560 km
0.6%
from the published radius, alongside transit depth and ingress / egress durations
Observed
2 October 2024
Distance
≈ 530 light-years
Telescope
1-metre telescope, Allan I. Carswell Observatory (York University)
Calibration
50 bias + 50 flat frames
Transit lab · HAT-P-18 b
Out of transit · pre-ingress
The transit lab re-plots the flux from Figure 6.1 of the original report: the dots are the per-frame measurements, the line is the report’s own best fit, and the planet’s path uses the contact frames marked there (ingress 100 → 250, egress 550 → 670). The planet-to-star size ratio comes from the 69,112 km radius and the 0.75 R☉ stellar radius the analysis adopted. Transit depth: 1.7% · 0.989 RJ · 10.85 R⊕.
06Skills
Model it before it is built.
Then make it, in the shop.
Turn raw data into decisions.
Keep every requirement honest.
Hover a constellation or a skillTap a constellation or a skillDashed ring = appears in two groups
07Timeline
Hover a row · click to jump to itTap a row to jump to it
● Education
York University · North York, ON
Aug 2021 — Apr 2027
Additional certificates
Bergeron Entrepreneurs in Science and Technology
Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Property Law
Cross-Disciplinary Mechatronics
08Résumé
Edition · September 2026 · 2 pages · PDF
The short version in 2 pages — roles, projects, dates and numbers — in the format recruiters and review boards expect.
Click the preview to open it in a new tab.Tap the preview to open it in a new tab.
